Author Kristin Maxwell

Why I Wrote a Book About My Burnout Experience

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 06:00:00 GMT

Why Share About My Burnout Experience?

I wrote about my burnout experience to share what I learned about helping myself through a terrible experience. I almost took my own life as a result of not knowing how to cope with accumulating stress, working with the emotional side of dentistry, and immense pressure I put on myself to be an over the top dental hygienist that went above and beyond for their patients.

I had not implemented any helpful strategies to keep these pressures from building. Eventually, I walked away from dentistry as I felt that was the better alternative then choosing my life expiration date. I never thought I would get those life ending thoughts, I never thought I would act on them. After nearly 3 years of fighting these thoughts I could not take them anymore. I did not understand why I had them. I was angry with myself as I felt I should be happy. I felt like I did not have a good enough reason to feel depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and hopeless. I had accomplished becoming a dental hygienist and found the office that I wanted to stay at for my whole career. I should have been ecstatic! Yet, I was not. I felt closed off to any feelings of happiness and felt over exposed to emotions of negativity. I never felt good enough, even when co-workers and patients told me that they appreciated my work ethic and the care I provided.

It wasn’t until after my burnout experience that I realized I had been going through burnout. It might seem obvious to an onlooker; but gradual change can be hard to detect when you aren’t looking for it. As I decompressed for 2 years from my burnout experience, I began to understand that there was more than just being stressed at work. I had crumbled my self-confidence and was destroying myself for not being able to be perfect as a clinician or person.

I lost or missed out on nearly 3 years of my life while I had suicidal thoughts. It took me 4 more years to really learn what I needed to do differently and understand what had happened to me. These were years in my 20’s and 30’s that were distracted by overcoming this instead of enjoying life, possibly having children, going on adventures, finding new hobbies, being a supportive spouse, and the list can go on from here as who knows what I could have accomplished during this time.

What I went through has meaning and it is ok to mourn the loss of what could have been. The important thing is, I am still here and I want to make up for that lost time. My hope is that readers of my book are able to identify signs of burnout in their life earlier and get help earlier in the burnout cycle. Better yet, if they are able to implement the self-care strategies to help prevent a burnout cycle from occurring at all, then my book did its job. Now I am not a professional of mental health, and I do not have all the answers. If you are someone who is having suicidal thoughts right now then please go to the suicide hotline website. They have a number you can text to get help immediately.

In Scaling Burnout, I share how I rebuilt myself and how I was able to return to dentistry and prevent burnout from occurring again. I had to put in the work of overcoming anxieties with tasks that are a part of the dental profession, learning how to separate myself from the emotions of others, and how to talk positively to myself.

This started with a list of what I could do to make returning to dentistry a possibility.

I began by making a list of how dentistry could be different if I went back with a better plan. This then turned into journaling about certain scenarios that triggered anxiety for me so I could begin to create a new process to follow so I could lead myself through those anxious moments. Journaling showed me the mindset challenges I had created so I could work on a new perspective. Then I was able to identify better work-life balance for myself that created healthier ways to process my emotions, to rest from work, to enjoy moments of life with people I loved. This showed me that I can do more than just avoid another burnout cycle, I can prevent it and enjoy life! I wanted to share this with others to help save them some time and prevent going through an experience like what I did.

To learn more, find Scaling Burnout here on Amazon in paperback and eBook.

What is Scaling Burnout?

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 06:00:00 GMT

What is Scaling Burnout?

Scaling teeth is a term for cleaning teeth. Using scalers means using hand instruments as opposed to a “water-scaling” instrument (Cavitron, Piezo, etc.).

The term Scaling Burnout can be used in two different ways. Scaling burnout can be physical exhaustion from skillfully removing calculus deposits in a workday or week. The other meaning, and what this book refers to is climbing (or scaling) out of a burnout cycle and getting back to a healthier state. I came up with this term to express my burnout experience in dentistry. I share my experience of overcoming burnout and returning to the dental profession in Scaling Burnout: Navigate the Emotional Side of Dentistry and Prevent Burnout.

How do we begin to scale burnout or get out of our burnout cycle?

We need to identify ways we can help ourselves.

Taking a look at the mindset challenges of self-criticism, perfection, people pleasing, and over-empathy and also solutions to shift into a healthier mindset to overcome our fears and improve self-confidence. We can help ourselves by focusing on our Internal Foundation such as the state of our mindset, perspective, emotions we have, how we deal with emotions (well or not so well) and how we can start challenging old beliefs about ourselves.

Having a better understanding of how we treat ourselves in stressful situations and how we can improve, allows us to change how we view ourselves in those situations. It will become easier to establish healthy boundaries for ourselves so we can help our patients without sacrificing our needs.

What is burnout?

My definition of burnout is a decrease in resilience to stressors in life emotionally, mentally, and physically. Life is made up of good and bad stress. How we perceive scenarios, and their outcomes, determines the amount of stress we feel. You might also lose your zeal about your career and lose sight of your values or feel bored.

Resentment might set in about your work situation or patients. Physically, you may notice fatigue and feel you want to sleep more and avoid your usual routine. You may turn to alcohol or drugs to cope with your overwhelmed and emotional state. Burnout sets in when you don’t have a healthy balance of work and home life, rest, and play. You seem to have larger problems and can’t find solutions. You might even see yourself as the problem and not a solution. Burnout can be associated with feelings of hopelessness, inferiority, low self-esteem, and low self-confidence.

Over time, too much stress with no recovery or enough rest and play can eventually lead someone to experience burnout where they don’t want to fight anymore and even give up all hope.

The dental profession is a demanding career, usually involving long hours, fine motor skills in a small space, and helping patients with dental fear, all while maximizing production. It is easy to take work stress home with us if we aren’t careful about creating healthy boundaries for ourselves and practicing self-care.

If we don’t use self-care daily, we may eventually experience burnout. We need to know that burnout can be experienced in different degrees, and some of us may never experience it. Each of us might need different strategies to help us avoid it all together. The sooner we address signs of burnout, the better and easier it is to treat. Left untreated, burnout can lead to crisis mode, which could leaves us traumatized, depressed, self-isolated, and potentially developing suicide ideation, which is what happened to me.

My burnout and the neglect it caused increased over six years to the point where I became ill, mentally and physically. By implementing self-care every day, my goal is to avoid burnout and enjoy life. Using the metaphor of our minds being like engines helps explain how we can approach our mental and emotional health. It can help us identify that we are stuck and how to shift into a better gear to get ourselves unstuck. After all, burnout can alter our mindset, which alters our thoughts, which alters our emotions and our actions. Having an awareness of this shift can allow us to better identify solutions to burnout.

Feeling stuck and like I was in my own way, I created a diagram to help myself understand how I was dealing or not dealing with anxiety-inducing situations. Using what I refer to as Fear Gears, I was using a Conditional Mindset. This anxiety was filling me up on the inside and I didn’t know if it would ever be any different. These four Fear Gears, helped me to realize that altering my perspective could help me shift gears and approach situations that were typically stressful for me into Drive Gears which allowed me to work beneficially for both my patients and myself. This helped shift my mindset over to a Developmental one and reduced my anxiety-inducing patient scenarios.

What is Self-care?

Self-care is about maintaining ourselves. It is the opposite of getting bogged down and overwhelmed because the stress is just too much. Self-care gives us the ability and awareness to choose how we will react instead of having an emotional reaction that has been learned and practiced many times. Giving ourselves love and kindness when we make a mistake helps so we can learn from it without punishing ourselves, and is a form of self-care and prevention. We need to practice self-care every day by staying in a Developmental Mindset and using our Drive Gears so we can learn and grow instead of creating avoidance and worry.

To learn more about Fear Gears and Drive Gears, checkout my book on Amazon in eBook and paperback, Scaling Burnout: Navigate the Emotional Side of Dentistry and Prevent Burnout.

The Game Of preventive Dentistry

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 06:00:00 GMT

Approach dentistry as a game with prevention and self-care built in for you, the clinician. We play offense and defense in our lives, so learn how to build a strategy that works with patient care.

There are many sports in life. If we looked at life as if we were playing a game, we might have more fun. Looking at the dental field as a sport helped me to try strategies and perspectives that helped me remain in dentistry and stay away from burnout. Also, I was way too serious all the time. Probably from the pressure of the high expectations of my Perfection, People Pleasing, Inner Critic, Over-Empathetic Fear Gears keeping me in a highly anxious and fearful state. I had to find a way to not be so serious. Hence, thinking of dentistry and even self-care as a game can help us notice an improvement in our quality of life.

If we are going to show up to live life and play any games, we might as well enjoy it instead of being stressed through it. To get better at a game, we have to improve our fundamentals. This entails our personal Internal Foundation of our Mindset (Developmental Mindset), Perspectives (Drive Gears instead of Fear Gears), Thoughts/Beliefs/Memories (The Motivation Station and Rumination Station), and our Constructive and Destructive Emotions and Actions. We can use self-care strategies to shift to a Developmental Mindset, using the Drive Gears and visiting the Motivation Station as often as possible to improve our quality of life and enable us to live up to our full potential.

The Internal Foundation work helps us to have a better understanding of how we treat ourselves in stressful situations and what we can improve to help change how we view ourselves in those situations. It will be easier to establish healthy boundaries for ourselves so we can help our patients without sacrificing our needs. Instead of only being able to react to the curveballs life throws at us, we have strategies we can utilize to keep ourselves from going back to our old habits that lead to burnout. An example of this would be the way our training kicks in during an emergency instead of reacting from our raw emotions. We can pause and take a moment to choose to react more appropriately to help us for the long-term instead of just applying a short-term band-aid.

A good example of training in action would be the Healthcare Provider First-Aid and CPR training renewal that happens yearly or every two years, depending on the organization. Staying calm and performing CPR, instead of running around like a chicken with our head cut-off, is an example of good training kicking in. Reviewing this regularly and staying on top of any recent changes helps ensure we will know what to do at a moment’s notice in an emergency. It is good to have emotions, but acting on our raw emotions might not always be the right choice of action.

We also need to practice self-care every day so it becomes our new normal and second nature to implement. Preventing burnout helps our overall health. Practicing good prevention for ourselves helps us to help those around us even more.

Prevention is the opportunity for a patient to change their future and a chance for them to grow. For dental professionals, prevention is our opportunity to promote healthy self-esteem, safe work practices, and connect with our patients without attaching to their traumas. Prevention takes the fear and pain out of dentistry for patients. Prevention takes the anxiety out of our caring. Self-care is prevention!

The Game of Preventive Dentistry

Because we are both the coach and player in life, we need to review our Foundation, such as our mindset, perspective, thoughts, and beliefs. These influence our offense and defense that are expressed through our actions and emotions and improve the surrounding environment.

Looking at our career as a sport, we need strategies to help keep us playing for more than one game (one workday) and one season (one work year). In the past, I have taken life way too seriously and missed out on some great fun and excellent lessons along the way. Looking at obstacles as a game seems less intimidating, as we work away from a Conditional Mindset. If thinking of life as a game is too corny for you, I am sorry. Most of the time, the largest source of intimidation comes from us and the anxiety we develop from stressful situations. With a game, we practice tactics and strategies so we can continue to play. Serious mental work is very important. When using it correctly, we can have a fresh perspective on how we feel about being a dental professional and feeling great about how we help people, all while ensuring our own best health along the way.

Maintaining healthy boundaries and expectations for ourselves in caring for people is essential to lowering our risk of burnout when helping people who don’t enjoy coming to the dentist and are afraid. We must think about our Offense and Defense Strategies constantly to stay in a healthy mindset and have a lasting career taking care of others.

The name of the game is Preventive Dentistry. The dental professionals are a team playing for the patients of your practice. Notice I said playing for the patients in your practice, not playing against. In this game, the goal is for both the patient and the dental professional to win. That’s right, both sides need to win for a point to be scored. The dental practice always has the home advantage at the dental office.

Fouls are anything that takes us away from scoring points for patients. These can take the form of either foul moods or foul plays. Fouls take away from the values of the practice and goals. These include negative comments, anything that takes away from the overall vision of the dental team, lacking support in certain areas of patient care or scheduling, and drama in the office (co-workers not getting along or gossiping). Fouls are not the same as making mistakes. Mistakes help us learn and show us where we need improvement as we develop.

Points are scored when everyone benefits from an exchange of dental-related services. Points are any win with a patient improving their own daily oral self-care routine, committing to and following through with their treatment, a patient completing all their treatment, paying for all their treatment, overcoming their dental fears, or a patient writing a review or referring someone to the office. Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting literally keeping track of points. The actual numbers from your production will help you keep your score and other related stats. Your stats are what everyone is working to improve so the dental practice can keep doing what it does best-helping people.

The dental team has different positions, such as the dentist, dental assistants, dental hygienists, and administrative staff. Each position fills many needs for your patients and all positions must work together to create a win for each side.

Dental procedures are the plays we perform for patients. This falls under the Offense category. The Offense category encompasses the ways that we help play to win as we care for patients. It is proactive, not aggressive, and is ideal treatment carried out ideally for both parties. The Offense category is for all the ways to help get patients to ideal treatment, keep everyone safe, and create a wonderful experience at the dental practice for both sides. Another way of saying this is offense is moving productively towards practice goals.

Defense is defending our core values and countering anything that could take us away from serving our patients in the best way possible. Defense strategies may be needed at any time to take control of the dental appointment and to minimize negative experiences for both parties. A great defense strategy helps instill our own healthy boundaries and get us back to offense so we can keep doing what we do best. Another way of saying this is Defense is guarding or protecting ourselves and practicing goals proactively. We need to implement both Offense and Defense strategies as a part of our self-care plan to keep playing.

Since we are all in the process of development and need to continually practice staying on our “A-game”, each individual player needs different self-care strategies to help keep their fundamentals fresh. Implementing daily self-care, both physically and mentally, can help keep us feeling passionate about our career and helping people, all while staying far away from burnout. That is why in many sports there is always some kind of rest period, a time to reset mentally and rest physically.

In my book, Scaling Burnout: Navigate the Emotional Side of Dentistry and Prevent Burnout, I break down the fundamentals for clinicians, and the fundamentals for working with patients. Fundamentals are divided into Offense and Defense as a playbook of sorts. These are the tactics we can use to help practice good self-care and also work through stress-inducing scenarios to overcome them.

My book, Scaling Burnout is available on Amazon in both eBook and paperback.

Strategies for the Emotional Side of Dentistry

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 06:00:00 GMT

Have you ever had burnout to the point of thinking about leaving the dental hygiene profession? I have. My name is Kristin Maxwell and I have been a dental hygienist since 2009. By 2014, I experienced burnout that nearly turned into a life ending event.

“Burnout is a decrease in resilience to stressors in life emotionally, mentally, and physically. Life is made up of good and bad stress. How we perceive scenarios, and their outcomes, determines the amount of stress we feel. Burnout sets in when you don’t have a healthy balance of work and home life, rest, and play”(1). While in burnout, your problems seem bigger than they really are, and solutions are hard to identify. You might even see yourself as the problem and not a solution. Burnout can be associated with feelings of hopelessness, inferiority, low self-esteem, low self-confidence and more. I did not know I was experiencing burnout as it was happening. I felt like I was unable to deal with stressful situations with patients. I seemed to soak up their emotions like a sponge, letting them mix with my own. I did not know how to break this burnout cycle, until I felt defeated and walked away from my dental hygiene career, thinking I would never return.

Turns out, my biggest challenge with my career in dental hygiene is with the emotional side of dentistry. The emotional side of dentistry has to do with the emotions we encounter from our patients such as dental fear, low-trust, their own anxieties, as well as other emotions depending on what they are going through in their personal lives and how we let these emotions impact us as well as the emotions we have. As dental hygienists, we spend an hour or sometimes more with the emotions of others. With a tight schedule, we need to quickly get ready for the next patient and all that we are required to do while they are in our care. With dental fear and dental phobia, we may see several patients back to back working through their own fears. If we aren’t keeping their emotions separate from ours, it can be overwhelming and cause dysfunction for us clinicians if we don’t address how it makes us feel.

For some more than others, the emotions of others can be a challenge to work around and keep them separate from ourselves so they don’t influence how we feel. Emotions can have a powerful effect on us if we let them. As I became familiar with the patients in my care, I would often remember their negative emotions from last time and would start to worry about having to work around those emotions again. I had anxiety about social situations to begin with and started to get anxious with working with certain emotions and beliefs of patients such as lack of trust, fear, low-value in dental care, lack of care for themselves, etc.

I felt like I was the only one struggling on this emotional level and felt like I could not ask for help. After two years of decompressing away from dentistry, and an emotional reset, I found myself returning to this career that I once loved. This took learning what self-care was and realizing that I was not taking care of myself and my emotions at all.

Thankfully, I got the help I needed.

Self-care is making time for yourself and balancing work and personal life, all while having an awareness of your feelings and fulfilling your needs. Self-care is the ability to recognize when you need help and keep yourself moving through fear to grow into the person you want to become. Incorporating self-care daily can restore and refresh our perspectives on life’s situations so we can seek fulfillment and prevent burnout(2).

Many activities and strategies can be considered self-care and can vary with each individual.

Feeling like I was out of burnout, I was curious if I could return to dental hygiene successfully without repeating another burnout cycle. Working full time with patients, I quickly realized that my old coping mechanisms did not provide long lasting solutions that avoided burnout. This got me reviewing my burnout from a different perspective and seeing these old coping mechanisms in a new light.

My old coping mechanisms which I refer to as Fear Gears, contributed to my burnout by: focusing on being perfect, the less mistakes I make the better I will be. To be more tough, I would talk to myself with the voice of a harsh inner critic. I would be overly empathetic with my patients yet ignore my own feelings. I lost sight of what was important to me as I was a people pleaser through and through. The coping mechanisms that I thought were helping, only made the burnout I had worse and brought on life ending thoughts, anxiety, and stress. I found myself in a very conditional mindset where my circumstances were dictated by the day’s patients, if my boss was happy with my production and if my co-workers liked me.

Perspectives are like gears in our mindset of the transmission of our mental engine. As I discovered what made me prone to burnout, I was able to identify Four Fear Gears that can keep us stuck in neutral or wanting to avoid scary situations and take us in Reverse of where we actually want to go. These Fear Gears are Over-Empathy, People Pleaser, Inner Critic, and Perfection. The counter to those gears are the Four Drive Gears of Compassion, Personal Integrity, Inner Coach, and Excellence, and help drive us forward in challenging situations.

Coming from either a Developmental Mindset or a Conditional Mindset affects how we navigate the emotional side of dentistry and which gears we use that determine our behaviors, and influence our emotions and actions. Understanding these different Fear and Drive Gears can help us realize how to get to a Developmental Mindset so we can do a better job sticking up for ourselves and improving how we work through anxiety-inducing scenarios.

I now use strategies to help myself to remain in a Developmental Mindset using what I call Drive Gears. Drive Gears allow me to strive for excellence in the moment instead of pressure from perfection so I can perform better. I understand my own personal integrity so I can understand what it is I want to accomplish instead of trying to not disappoint others as a people pleaser. I learned how to work with my own emotions and not mix them up with others while providing compassionate dental care.

I ended up writing a book of how I overcame my burnout, sharing self-care strategies that help me stay proactive against burnout so I could successfully return to dentistry and enjoy a career in dental hygiene once again.

References:

Maxwell, RDH, Kristin, 2024. Scaling Burnout: Navigate the Emotional Side of Dentistry and Prevent Burnout. Kindle Direct Publishing. Second Edition. Page 19.

Maxwell, RDH, Kristin, 2024. Scaling Burnout: Navigate the Emotional Side of Dentistry and Prevent Burnout. Kindle Direct Publishing. Second Edition. Page 7.